Dawn of Life
by Elza C. Boe
Summary: The monks didn't send a fully grown teenager to Buffy. Instead of a sister Buffy got something else. With a chary on the top, because the Powers that Be can never do things simple. AU *First story of New Dawn series*


_I don't own Buffy or Iron Man. I do own my imagination though, so this story is mine, mine, mine. Lots of love to Victoria Plenti Wilde, for her hard work. You are the best, babe._

I hope you love this as much as I love it :P

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**Dawn of Life**

It was a regular morning. A morning like any other morning. He was still rich. Pepper was still angry with him for one or reasons another. The arc reactor was still in his chest, making sure he didn't die. Everything was as usual in the morning of one billionaire playboy, industrialist and ingenious engineer, Tony Stark. Except…

There was something nibbling on the edge of his mind. Burrowing its way to the forefront. Something important.

It hit him almost unexpectedly. Made no sense though.

He could remember a night in. He considered going out, partying, trying to forget he was dying, but he opted against it. Instead he spent the night tweaking the Suit. Making adjustments, creating a legacy that wouldn't be remembered for the blood it spilled but for the lives it spared. He went to bed shortly after three in the morning, after Jarvis insisted that he needed the rest.

But there was another memory, casting the first one into shadow, trying to overlap it.

Instead of staying in the mansion he went out in town. He partied hard and drank even harder. And then he met the girl. Short, blond, hypnotizing. Nothing on Pepper of course, but still in a class of her own. The air around her cracking with the raw power, it lured him to her like no other woman that night did.

At first she didn't really acknowledge him, not caring for the money or fame his name brought. Her only concern was dancing. So he joined in and danced. It was nice, forgetting for a few minutes all the bad stuff that was trying to suffocate him. The more he danced the more the girl noticed him.

Their stumble was short but hot. She dragged him in the back alley instead of taking accepting his offer for a ride to the mansion. The intensity of the tryst was unexpected but a welcomed distraction. Her thighs squeezing him into her, her hands traveling up and down his body. And then, just as quick as she came into his world that night, she disappeared. Not that it mattered. He was a dying man, what could he offer to anybody, except his money? That's way he pushed Pepper away. Why he pushed Rodney.

The night ended when he stumbled into his bed at three in the morning, trying his best to forget red and blond hair, flashing in his mind.

It was odd, to have two sets of memories, but at this point it didn't really matter to Tony anymore. Who cares if he was slowly going insane, he was going to die in the near future anyway.

**xXx**

"What do you mean I'm pregnant?" Buffy screeched at her Watcher.

This wasn't happening. This couldn't happen. She was only nineteen. She was the Slayer. She wasn't supposed to get pregnant. Not from a one night stand. Not ever really. She was already living on borrowed time, for God's sake!

"Good Lord Buffy, would you listen to me. I said that this wasn't an ordinary pregnancy. The coven called me this morning and…"

"No, Giles, you aren't listening to me. I'm pregnant? I can't be pregnant! There's no possible way that I could be pregnant! Riley was the last one and that was months ago. I would have noticed if I was pregnant by now." But there was a tingling in the back of her mind. A memory of a night out. A man, far above her dancing with her, rubbing against her, taking her. The memory was there, but she knew that the night never really happened. There was no trip to L.A., she hadn't left Sunnydale since way before Riley.

"Buffy, if you would listen to me. This isn't a normal pregnancy, can't be a normal pregnancy. The readings the coven got are way too high for it to be normal."

"So, you are saying some… something raped me and put a baby demon in me." The thought repulsed her. Was it ever going to end? Would the pain and the humiliation ever stop? Didn't she already give enough? Did they have to take away the last remnants of her dignity?

A horrified expression graced his face, before he hugged her tightly to him. "No, Buffy, no." Stroking her hair he started to whisper in her ear. "Oh, dear girl, nothing like that happened. I'm so sorry if I led you to believe that. Whatever it is, it's not evil. It's as pure as it gets. Innocence in its incarnation."

It helped a little but not much. She was still pregnant. She was still essentially raped. "If it's not a demon, than what is it?"

"I don't know yet. The coven already started with the research, but as of yet we didn't find anything. Don't worry, though, I won't stop until I have all the answers. No matter how pure the child might be, whoever did this to you wasn't. Couldn't be."

Giles' voice got a dangerous edge to it, telling Buffy more than all the words could. He felt it too. The rage that was lingering in her too. At the invasion of her body. He felt it too. How could he not? She was the closest he would ever get to a child. Maybe not by blood, but she was his daughter. And somebody or something violated her as nothing before had.

"What am I going to do Giles? I don't know anything about babies. I could die at any moment. Hell, I could get injured during the pregnancy and kill the baby!" She was getting upset again and couldn't stop it. The dark scenarios were playing in her mind, each more gruesome than the other.

"So you decided to keep it?" It was a fair question, based on her current reactions, or so Giles thought.

His outrageous question bolted her back to reality. "What? Of course I'm going to keep it. It's a baby. A living being. I'm supposed to protect them, not kill them!"

The audacity of the man! To think she would try and harm the baby. It didn't even cross her mind. Not since the moment he told her it wasn't a demon.

"How could you even think that I wouldn't keep it? That I would go and kill it! When it can't even defend itself! When I'm the only thing keeping it alive and well! It's helpless! An innocent in this! It needs me."

Her rant was a surprise, but Giles was glad. At least she stopped feeling sorry for herself.

"In that case I have some phone calls to make."

**xXx**

Not only was she pregnant, but there was something wrong with her mom. And the stupid ritual didn't work. Or did it, but there was nothing really hurting her mom? Was that way she pulsed in the mirror? Was something wrong with her? Or was that only the sign of her being a slayer?

She didn't know anymore. She was confused and restless and it was high time she did something about it.

That's why she went to the abandoned factory where she found the Dagon Sphere. There had to be something that would make sense.

She expected a lot of things. To find the factory empty. To find it filed with demons. She didn't however expect to find a monk, strapped to a chair. He didn't look that good. Whatever got him put quite a number on him. And was trying to sneak up on her.

"… And best of all, I'm not stupid." She turned around grabbing the thing – in human form – by the neck. She didn't expect the demon to be so strong though. It, no, she swatted her away like a fly. It played with Buffy like a toy.

It soon became crystal clear to Buffy that she had no chance of winning. Not like this. So she grabbed the monk and jumped out of the window, praying to whoever would listen, that her baby would be okay.

She landed on her back and made sure that the monk didn't suffer anymore injuries. He was in a bad state as it was. Helping him up, she tried to get them away from the she-demon as fast as she could, but the monk had other ideas. "Stop. Please."

She had no intentions of leaving him behind though. She would drag him to the hospital if she had to. "No, we have to keep going."

Her luck ran out by the gate, where the monk almost propelled himself at the ground, determined to stop. "My journey is done. I think."

She kneeled next to him, and urged him to stand up again, but with no avail. "Don't go metaphorical on me. We are going."

He pulled her to him. "You have to." Staring into her eyes he tried to convey the message. "The key, you must protect the key."

She agreed, trying to get him to move. "Fine. We can protect the key together, okay? Just…" She looked back at the factory, fearing that the she-demon would appear any moment now. "Far, far from here."

He went on as if she said nothing. "Many more will die if you don't keep it safe."

That got her attention. Could this be the lead she was looking for? "How? What is it?"

Satisfied that she was finally listening he kept talking. "The key is energy. It's a portal that opens the door."

She was confused, but that could come later, now she needed to know anything he could tell her. "The… the Dagon Sphere?"

He shook his head urgently. "No." Struggling with the words he tried to show her the importance of The Key. "For centuries it had no form at all. My brethren, it's only keepers. Then, The Abomination found us. We had to hide the key. Gave it form. Molded it flesh. Made it human and sent it to you."

Slowly a picture started to form in her head. A horrifying knowledge of what he was talking about and it terrified her. "The baby," she whispered, half in wonder and half in horror.

He smiled, satisfied that she finally got what he meant. That she finally understood what her job was "She is the key."

She noted that he already mentioned the baby's gender, but ignored it for the moment. The ever present anger she felt since Giles told her about the pregnancy started to grow in her. "You put that in my body?"

"We knew the slayer would protect," was his only answer. His job was done. The Key was safe with the Slayer. She would protect it from The Abomination."

The more he talked, the more she felt her rage coming up on the surface. What have they done to her? "My memories, that guy's."

The answer was simple, not important in the monk's eyes. "We built them."

She was hanging by the threads. How dare they! "Then unbuild them. This is my life you're…" She was interrupted by him before she could really start to express her rage. His injuries were finally catching up with him and he started to caugh violently. She was helpless. He was dying and she couldn't do anything. They made her pregnant with a thing that could open portals and she had no say in it.

There was only one more thing for the monk, before he could let go and join his brethren. "You cannot abandon. "

She was again forced into something. They were trying to manipulate her path again. What could she do? How could she protect herself? Against something that was growing inside her? "I didn't ask for this. I don't even know… What is she?"

Finally she asked the question that he knew would convince her to protect The Key. "Human. Now human. And helpless. Please. She is innocent in this. She needs you."

The words, that she told Giles mere hours ago, shook her. Made her realize things. "She's not a real baby."

He smiled gently at her. "She is now."

It was all too much. She was pregnant with a key? An energy that was apparently so desirable that it had to be hidden from the world?

Was it dangerous? Was she harboring a vessel of destruction, as innocent as it was? Would it harm the people around her? Change her?

There were so many questions rolling in her had. So many answers she needed badly. It was all just too much.

So deep in her thoughts she didn't notice that the monk stopped breathing, staring into the distance.

**xXx**

Standing on the top of the tower Buffy only felt horror and a profound fear. All she went through these past nine months, it all came down to this moment.

All those months fighting Glory. She had Faith helping her. Well, officially she helped Faith, but still, she fought anyway.

She had to pass all the same "tests" The Council put on them. Making them dance as they whistled. And then getting fed up with it and throwing them out.

She survived her mother dying, leaving her alone in the world. She had her friends and Giles, but still. It was her mother! Her mommy. Dead. And she couldn't do anything about it. Didn't have anything to kill.

But she coped. Coped with that and coped with the fact that she had a death wish in her. Coped with the fact that death was her gift.

And God, the labor. She survived that too. The long painful hours, giving birth to her precious daughter. Her little Dawn. The little angel.

She even went through Giles telling her to kill her own baby.

Surviving all that and more was easy, but this? This was something out of her worst nightmare.

Dawn, cut and bloody on the edge of the tower and above her towering a vile creature. A creature that would pay for what it had done to her daughter. The only thing holding her back from the edge of insanity were Dawn's soft cries.

He hurt her. Hurt her baby. She saw red. She defeated Glory just so that a lowlife could hurt her little girl.

"This should be interesting." The demon smiled a cruel smile at her, but he didn't matter. All that mattered was her little baby. Walking right pass him she pushed him of the tower and then picked Dawn up.

Her baby was red in the face from all the crying and Buffy gently shushed her. She tore her shirt and bandaged Dawn's cuts, trying to stop the bleeding. It didn't take long. In matter of minutes her baby was sleeping, satisfied that her mom was with her again.

But Buffy knew it wasn't all finished jet. The dragon, flying pass her, only cementing that. The portal was opened and only blood could close it again.

'Couse it always has to be blood… Summers' blood. It's just like mine… She's me. The monks made her out of me…. Death is your gift.

Little Dawn's blood. Summers' blood. Her blood. Death was her gift. She could save Dawn after all. Oh God, she could save them without killing her precious little angel.

She took her jacket of and threw it on the steel beams. Gently she lowered her baby on the jacket, kissing her head for the last time. She took off her locket and put it around Dawn's neck. For protection and for remembrance.

"I love you. I will always love you. But this is the work I have to do. You have to be strong now, sweetie. Dawn, the hardest thing to do in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me." It tore her that she would leave her daughter alone in the world, but she would have Giles and Xander and Willow and Tara and Anya. She would have Spike watching over her. Protecting her. But right now it was her turn to save them all.

She turned around, ran and leaped from the tower into the bright light.

**xXx**

It was strange, but Tony remembered the blond girl that day. The woman that shared a few of her precious moments with someone like him.

He wondered where she was now and if she was well.

She was different from other women and he sincerely hoped all the best for her.

"Best of luck, my little stranger."

"Did you say something," Pepper turned around and cuddled into him.

"Nothing. Sleep, you had an exciting night tonight." He squeezed her closer and kissed her head. All was finally well in the life of Tony Stark.

**xXx**

"Looks like the Hellmouth is officially closed for business." Faith looked over the edge of the crater and felt glad that the town was no more. Too much shit happened in there.

Giles took of his glasses and sighed "There is another one in Cleveland. Not to spoil the moment, but we do have a lot of work ahead of us..."Not that he wanted to do anything at the moment. Basking in the victory was sorely needed right now. Especially after all the people they lost.

Faith grabbed his shoulder and half-jokingly asked. "Can I push him in?"

"You got my vote," answered Willow with a gentle smile.

Leaning on Giles, Faith whined. "I just wanna sleep, yo. For, like, a week."

Willow nodded in agreement. She knew exactly how Faith felt. All this was going on for far too long. "Yeah, the First is scrunched, so... What do you think we should do, Buffy?"

Faith smiled at her friend. "Yeah, you're not the one and only chosen anymore. Just gotta live like a person. How's that feel?"

Buffy looked at Faith, looked back at the crater and considered the question. A small smile crept onto her lips as she decided on her answer.

"We are gonna do whatever we want. Live as people, not like prisoners." She turned back to her friends, Dawn on her hip, and gave them a radiant smile. "And we are going to be everywhere."

The world finally had the protection it needed.

There were hundreds of Slayers now, she could feel them. Slayers who will make sure that innocent people don't get killed.

And Buffy was going to make sure that not one of them had to go through what she had. The old ways were finally over.

**xXx**

"Mommy, mommy, come on! We have to hurry. We're going to miss it!" The little girl, not older than five, pulled a young blond woman through the streets of Manhattan.

They were off to see a Broadway musical and the little girl was absolutely ecstatic. She was real good when the bad monsters came and attacked the school for big girls and mommy promised her that if she was real good she would take her wherever she wanted and now the bad monsters were dead and Dawn was really good and she wanted to go watch Cinderella and mommy promised to take her and now they were going.

Buffy laughed at her little star, bouncing on the sideway. She always feared that the supernatural was going to take away Dawn's innocence, but all the attacks and blood and demons, all which just bounced off of the little girl like water from a duck.

"Calm down, Dawn. We still have enough time. We won't miss it."

The little girl just looked at her mommy like she was stupid. "But mommy. I have to make sure Aunty Willow helps Cinderella! Who will make Cinderella pretty for the prince if Aunty Willow forgets?"

Buffy just smiled. Xander told her the Scooby version of Cinderella only once and her daughter took to it like a fish in the water.

"Don't worry. Aunty Willow promised not to forget, right? And we still have two hours before the show starts. Do you want an ice-cream?"

No sooner were the words uttered did the girl stop. "Ice-cream!" Ice-cream was the best. Her Spike was always giving her ice-cream when he was watching her. But that was a secret, because mommy would get mad at Spiky if she knew.

"Can I get chocolate and lemon?" Chocolate and lemon was the best. Mommy always made faces, but mommy was silly.

"Ok, chocolate and lemon it is." Buffy didn't see how that combination could be good, but Dawn liked it and today was Dawn's day.

"Yay," squealed the little girl, let go of Buffy's hand and ran towards the ice-cream stand. But in her haste she didn't notice the people coming her way. She smacked face-on into a pair of legs that crossed her path.

"Omph." She fell on her butt and blinked twice, confused of what exactly happened.

"Hey there, little girl. Where's the fire?" A man crouched next to her and helped her up. He smiled at her, but then their eyes met and the man blanched. It was funny to look at, and Dawn would have laughed, if mommy hadn't showed up right then.

"Dawn Maria Summers, just what were you thinking! Didn't mommy tell you to never let go of my hand when we are in the city! What if something happened?"

Dawn looked on the ground and when mommy went quiet she looked up from her lashes. She knew that mommy never stayed mad if she did that.

On the sideway Tony watched the little girl, his mind still reeling from what he saw. The girl was amusing and adorable. When she was sitting on the floor, not quite sure how she got there, she melted his bad mood of all the meetings right away. And when he got close to her, to pick her up, he saw her big brown eyes.

Familiar eyes.

His father's eyes.

Eyes that stared at him every morning, in the mirror.

Good God, his worst nightmare just came alive.

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**So? What's your favorite part? I like if people comment :P**

Elza C. Boe


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